Sunday was a day of wounds and injuries. I recently sat down and clipped Peterman’s front nails. He was great about it! A real star. He couldn’t have made it easier. Very little squirming. It went great. I sat down and did his rear nails on Sunday morning and I guess they grow more slowly than the front because it got down to the quick a couple of times. I only know this because of all the bleeding. He didn’t cry or howl or help in pain. He was great.

I felt awful because it must have been very painful. I held a paper towel on his toes for about five minutes and applied pressure. It looked like it had stopped so I let him go and took care of some other chores.

In the meantime he ran all over the house and the bleeding wasn’t “stopped” so much as “gushing”. Ok, it wasn’t really gushing. But he left all these bloody little puppy footprints all over the house.

Liz said she walked in to the kitchen and wondered what happened because of all the gore and carnage.

She has a talent for overstatement sometimes. It wasn’t THAT bad.

But it wasn’t great either. I went to the pharmacy and got styptic stick to stop the bleeding, but it didn’t work very well. The pharmacist said that he did that to his dog once and that although the dog quickly forgave him he doubted that his wife had gotten over it yet!

Liz wrapped the paws in bandages and taped a pair of Gracies socks on. That eventually did the trick. Later that day I picked up some styptic powder from the pet store for next time.

Every time Liz reminded me of this for the rest of the day I tried to change the subject to Gabriel. We’re not sure whether to hug him and thank our lucky stars or to spank him.

We had gone ice skating around noon. The boys’ skates no longer fit so they had to rent some. I hate ice skating so I took on the duty of lacing and gettin the kids ready to skate. After that was all taken care of I lingered on the side of the rink watching the kids go by. I saw Gabriel skating towards me and as he got closer I kept waiting for him to see me so I could wave.

He did some kind of a weird twist so his back was to me and then fell flat on his chest.

Hard.

He curled up and wasn’t getting up right away as people skated around him. I gingerly ran out on to the ice to get him as he turned and started crawling to the gate using only his arms to pull his limp legs behind him.

Holy cow, it was pathetic with these tears streaming down his cheeks and his mouth gaping open as he pulled himself along.

Gabriel is usually the toughest of our lot. He tends to bounce but not break.

This time I wasn’t so sure.

He had really only crashed about 20′ away. And I was on him in a flash. I picked him up and carried him off the ice while a mother looked on wondering if she could help. A hockey coach asked if I needed anything as I examined him. I thought he had broken an arm judging from how he fell. But he said it was his leg and he pointed to his knee. I rolled up his pants and his knee had a funny protuberance on the inside.

shit.

I called Liz and the kids over and told them we were going to have to take Gabe to the hospital. Liz was great. And so were the kids. She sprang into action-commando-mode getting the kids ready to roll while I picked up Gabriel and took him to the car. Then I went back to help Liz get everyone going. To my surprise she was already leaving the skating rink with all the right kids and all the right shoes!

wow.

When we got home Gracie asked Liz what she could do to help. Chloe went to get Gabe’s favorite stufffed animal. And Ben fetched a hand-held video game. Liz was getting crutches and stuff while I talked to Gabriel. I had him point to where it hurt. Then I asked if it hurt when he touched it. He poked it a few times and admitted he couldn’t find any pain.

This was encouraging!

I had him stand up to see if he could put some weight on it, but it buckled right away and he winced in pain. So I had him sit back down. Seconds later Liz came out went through the same routine but THIS time when she asked him to put some weight on it he could.

wha-what?!

He was jumping up and down on it and smiling! We went inside and he bounded up and down the stairs!!

So… what happened?!

I’m still not sure. I know that I’m grateful that we dodged a bullet on this and that he’s not hurt, but at the same time I wonder how he could have been miraculously be better when Liz asked. I have to wonder if I was encouraging him to be hurt. Maybe there was something I was doing that made him believe he was hurt.

Whatever.

The rest of the day was uninteresting. Very quiet. All’s well.

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